[WalterBright]

> We tax things we want people to do all the time.

True. But why not think about ditching those taxes, and replace them with taxing things we don't want people to do? There's a double benefit - tax revenue is raised, and people do less of those things undesirable to society.

For example, "sin" taxes.

For other examples, taxing pollution. Taxing the conversion of forest land to a parking lot. And so on.

[wqaatwt]

> replace them with taxing things we don't want people to do

Because your tax revenue will collapse if people actually stop doing those things?

[dwd]

Tobacco tax in Australia is an interesting example. A lot of people may have stopped initially but there was a more gradual decrease over time as the tax increases annually by CPI + 5%.

The problem is not everyone will stop and they now face is that at 70% of the price it's encouraging a black market for illegal tobacco with associated crime and a decline in tax revenue.

[WalterBright]

It's not possible for people to not pollute, for example.

[wqaatwt]

Well yes, but if you reduce pollution by 50% then you need to double the tax and so on and so forth.

If it’s not something that’s enforced globally you will either end up destroying certain industries and or having massive inefficiencies.

My point is that sin taxes might be a good way to discourage certain behaviors but not as good as a consistent revenue source.

Also there is a risk of perverse incentives like what happened in Tsarist Russia when most government revenue was coming from alcohol taxes.

[WalterBright]

> but if you reduce pollution by 50%

What a terrible outcome! LOL

[wqaatwt]

Well yeah.. that’s my point.

If the tax works you have to keep continuously increasing it every year. At some point that becomes detrimental (I mean there are good reasons why we don’t ban the usage of fossil fuels entirely..)

So it’s not a reliable source of revenue